Posted on 09/12/2004 8:41:47 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
Orange County is one of the most sophisticated, pricey, urbane locales in the United States, a magnet for professionals from across the country and for immigrants from every corner of the Earth. Yet it sometimes appears as if county residents are governed by the types of politics one might find in an impoverished backwater.
Recent weeks have provided lots of fodder. Here are my top examples of buffoonery, chicanery, greed and stupidity from our elected "public servants" over recent weeks.
The big winner is the Orange County Board of Supervisors, which has squandered uncountable taxpayers' dollars to placate a loud and surly union that has threatened to release the "hounds of hell" against any politician that gets in its way.
A Board of Supervisors with a 5-0 Republican majority voted 3-2 to dramatically spike pensions for public employees, apparently believing the union's claims that 60-percent-plus immediate increases in pensions won't cost county taxpayers a dime.
Three supes - Bill Campbell, Jim Silva and Tom Wilson - ignored the warnings of Treasurer John Moorlach and others and voted to create an immediate $300 million liability in a system that already is $1 billion in the hole to meet current obligations.
Two weeks after the vote, an actuarial report commissioned by the county finds that "the county's debt for retiree medical benefits has spiraled to $1.3 billion, more than doubling over the past three years, and reserves are expected to run out in 2006," reported the Register. The latest pension spike boosted medical benefits and added to an enormous unfunded pension liability problem.
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
underfunded..
gee, I womnder where the money went?
San Diego is going thru it big time as well.
At least San Diego's disaster comes from the mostly-Democrat City Council (although Republican Mayor Murphy has played a significant role in enabling them). If 5 Republicans in OC can't stomache a fight with unions, the future looks bleak indeed.
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